McCreason, why can’t you just accept Jesus as your personal savior already? Then we can focus on making the world a better place by voting for McCain, banning gay marriage, and building a fence to keep the Mexicans out.

Yeah no kidding BMU. To be an anarchist is putting way too much FAITH in the human species to be reasonable and trustworthy. Without some kind of structure I am quite sure we would devolve back to our primate roots. Could you imagine?

People are now self centered and destructive. Imagine having no one looking over their shoulder. Like everybody then would automatically do the right thing.

To actually believe in anarchy is inmature, irresponsible and deranged.

Governments are all at least partially dysfunctional and sometimes evil but…..whats the real choice? Like chaos is better and solves fookin’ anything.

‘Every reflecting mind must acknowledge that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity’

‘If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature destroys them’

If humans cannot be trusted, then you are advocating mass killings. Better to kill them off then let them screw up the world anymore. Best not to take any chances.

This is what is known as the false dilemma fallacy, also known as the black and white fallacy. If you believe people need some sort of social order, that does not mean they are so untrustworthy that the only safe and reasonable course of action is to stamp them out. You enact laws to enforce social order where willing cooperation alone won’t do it, and accept a certain amount of imperfection and lawbreaking as the nature of the beast.

Do you realize that by the logic you just used above, genocide would be preferable to the social order we have right now? Is that really what you want to suggest?

FrankChurch - 21 August 2008 05:44 PM

Anarchism is basically organic organizations, democratic means of working together, without authority or coersion.

What makes you think there will be no authority or coercion? What do you think will happen to you the first time someone bigger, tougher, and meaner than you are crosses your path and wants something you have? In the absence of some sort of social order, what is to stop him from doing just as he likes? Anarchism is a blueprint for domination of the weak by the strong.

FrankChurch - 21 August 2008 05:44 PM

If one wants an authoritarian structure to govern their lives then they might as well be a member of a church. Atheism doesn’t mean much then, does it?

Another false dilemma fallacy. Order doesn’t have to be religious in nature. The existence of largely secularized societies right here on earth today proves that authoritarian structure does not have to be wrapped up with a bunch of supernatural mumbo jumbo.

I am the very model of a Christian Evangelical
I’ve no need for courtesy when fighting things heretical
I know the bible word for word; you’ll find me pedagogical
I have my faith so I’ve no need for ideas that are logical
Atheists and Pagans fall before my wit satirical
They’ll burn in hell just as they should; their cries will be so lyrical
I’m always right, you’re always wrong, my reasoning’s dogmatical
For I’m the very model of a Christian Evangelical

Libertarianism is a wonderful dream. Marx made communism sound good also. Unfortunately, the world is not populated with perfectly selfless people. Assholes like me exist. In reality, selfishness (property) is the main reason why most people are willing to do something that they don’t particularly enjoy (work.) Libertarianism sounds like one big happy group hug; but McCreason is right. We live in the real world. We are not all professors at MIT. If Noam wants to see how anarchy works in reality, he should spend some time in South Central LA.

Real honesty is accepting the theories that best explain the actual data even if those explanations contradict our cherished beliefs.-Scotty

And we don’t live in a democracy. We live in a republic. There is, in fact, no true democracy operating anywhere, in any nation. The very term “democratic” is merely a label of convenience, and like many labels, imperfectly descriptive. We accept a certain degree of non-democratic reality in our institutions out of simple practicality. For one thing, it simply isn’t realistically possible to have pure democracy on the scale of a nation of over 300 million people. It doesn’t work on such a large scale.

But again, you are committing that black and white fallacy. Either a thing is democratic or it is authoritarian. In reality, it can be both, to varying degrees. Some governments are more democratic than others, some or more authoritarian. And none are pure democracies, or pure, totalitarian autocracies. Even the most liberal democracies have restrictions by which their citizens must abide, and even the most repressive autocracies can’t control every single minute of every citizen’s time.

You seem to have a very black and white mentality. The world is full of shades of gray.

I am the very model of a Christian Evangelical
I’ve no need for courtesy when fighting things heretical
I know the bible word for word; you’ll find me pedagogical
I have my faith so I’ve no need for ideas that are logical
Atheists and Pagans fall before my wit satirical
They’ll burn in hell just as they should; their cries will be so lyrical
I’m always right, you’re always wrong, my reasoning’s dogmatical
For I’m the very model of a Christian Evangelical